DESCRIPTION OF EGYPT

DESCRIPTION OF EGYPT

Herodotus’ description of Egypt has been described by the British Egyptologist Alan Lloyd as ‘our only consecutive account of Egyptian history between 664 and 525 bc and, for all its faults, it continues to provide the bedrock on which all modern work on the period is based’. Lloyd makes the point that native Egyptian texts of the 5th century bc, although quite extensive, are to a large extent full of stereotyped, obsolescent material that cannot be regarded as reliable. Herodotus, however, is not without his own problems, and according to Lloyd, he ‘presents a view of Egypt’s past which shows no genuine understanding of Egyptian history. Everything has been uncompromisingly customized for Greek consumption and cast unequivocally into a Greek mold.’ As long ago as 1887, it was demonstrated by the German philologist Herman Diels that Herodotus was extensively plagiarizing the work of his illustrious predecessor Hecataeus, especially in the geographical and ethnographic sections of his Egyptian volume. It has consequently been argued that Hecataeus ought to have at least some of the credit for developing the basic intellectual framework that characterized Herodotus and most later Greek authors writing about Egypt.

The next Greek to write extensively on Egypt from personal experience was another Hecataeus (c.320–300 bc), this time a philosopher and historian born in the Thracian town of Abdera. He was the author of many books, including one, probably called Concerning the Egyptians (Aegyptiaca), which was apparently based on the time he spent in Egypt in the employ of Ptolemy I, the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Although he almost certainly travelled up the Nile with Ptolemy, his writings include numerous extracts plagiarized from Herodotus. Hecataeus was a pupil of the sceptic Pyrrho, and although only fragments of his works have survived, he is quoted by a number of authors, including Diodorus Siculus. His book on Egypt is the earliest surviving Greek history to mention the Jews. He also provides a good indication of Greeks’ views of the ancient Egyptian political system in the early Ptolemaic period, although his view of Egyptian kingship seems unfortunately to be way off the mark, including the suggestion that, in general the priests are the ﬁrst to deliberate on the most important matters, and are always at the king’s side, sometimes as his helpers, sometimes as proposers of measures and teachers; and they also forecast future events by astrology and divination, and make known to him those acts recorded in the sacred books which can be of assistance.

It has been argued that Hecataeus’s view of Ptolemaic kingship was biased by two factors: ﬁrst, the use of priests and priestly documents as sources, and second, the tendency of Greek authors to add their own ideas into descriptions of ‘oriental’ customs. Not all Greeks were in Egypt to research books, some of them were in the Nile Valley for commercial or military reasons (or just passing through), and these individuals have left behind some of the earliest tourist and ‘pilgrimage’ grafﬁti on the sights and monuments that they visited.